Looseleaf Papers
by LionessAmaya
Summary: "This is what happens when you kick a dog too many times. When you kick a dog so many times that the kicking is the only thing that's real and even when you stop they still feel it." Oneshot, slight AU, M for brief references to torture.


**loose-leaf papers**

**(the five-day journal of annabeth chase)**

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><p>"<em>Without forgetting, it is quite impossible to live at all."<em>

_-Friedrich Nietzsche_

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><p><strong>0311/09**

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><p>3:20 PM<p>

They're back again. The same ones. Is it a good thing that I recognize them from yesterday? She would probably say yes, but she wants to see everything as a good thing. They all want answers to their questions, and she obliges them. She brings them here not because she wants me to remember them, but because she wants me to remember her and she thinks recalling them will bring that about.

_What happened to her?_

That is their favorite question, even though they never get a different answer. It's always the same, a meaningless jumble of names and places. I could tell them in fewer words: this is what happens when you kick a dog too many times. When you kick a dog so many times that the kicking is the only thing that's real and even when you stop they still feel it.

_Why can't she leave?_

They don't understand that no amount of places that I once walked will bring my past rushing back to me. They don't understand that here, in captivity, is the only place they can hold onto even a shadow of me. They don't understand until she tells them about yesterday. I don't remember the incident that she's referring to, but I do recall the aftermath: her screaming, my journal with its sharp edges being replaced with these sparse pieces of paper that I can do no damage to myself with. The cuts on my arms, now bandaged.

_Will she get better?_

I can keep my thoughts in some kind of order, now. That's better. Isn't it? Is that a sign of returned sanity? Or is it necessary to be able to name my family and friends, the torture I've undergone, the life I led before being locked into this room?

_Can she understand us?_

Better than they can. I can hear that they don't want _me,_ they want this Annabeth that keeps being described to me. They don't understand themselves enough to get this. They don't want me to speak to them, for all they implore me to. They want me gone.

They'll be leaving soon. They don't want to show their annoyance as I continue to scribble on these pieces of paper. Only one of them has any desire to stay. She gave me his name yesterday. Percy. He never takes his eyes off of me, even while asking his questions in a weary, hurt voice. He's clearly in love with this Annabeth character, and I have to admit:

I'm a little bit jealous.

5:45 PM

She took the page I wrote earlier. She looks pleased. I think she's starting to hope that I am 'recovering'. I suppose I must be, because I can recall quite clearly everything that's happened today and even a bit of yesterday.

I think I will speak to her soon. I don't want to be here forever. This is the first time I've thought about the future as if I will be in it. I am beginning to think that Annabeth will not return after all.

This is what I will say to her, to make her think that sometime soon I won't be crazy anymore:

Mother, did we win the war?

6:00 PM

blood blood blood my blood their blood running who will get away who won't? i won't they're coming

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><p><strong>0411/09**

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><p>10:25 AM<p>

I had another incident last night. She says they won't come today. I found a sheet of paper that I crumpled under my mattress so she won't see it. It looks like I remembered something, at least. It's too bad I don't remember writing it.

Then again, maybe it isn't. I ripped out a handful of my own hair yesterday. I can tell that she's thinking about taking away what few things are left in this room: the light bulb, too high for me to reach it anyway, the clock similarly out of my grasp, the mattress in the corner and the pen and papers on the floor.

I find this writing… comforting. Once they're on paper, my thoughts can't run away when I'm not looking.

11:00 AM

-my name is Annabeth

-I'm here because I'm crazy

-I'm crazy because I was tortured during a war

-sometimes I hurt myself

-people visit me

-my mother's name is Athena and she's the one who keeps me here

-there's someone named Dionysus who is coming to see me tomorrow

-the boy with the black hair and green eyes is named Percy

-I wanted to be an architect

7:00 PM

Dinner was good today: roast beef, mashed potato, and peas. She cut my meat for me, but she let me have a fork. She watched me very closely, and I could see hope in her eyes. It's ridiculous, how durable that stupid emotion is. How many times has it been proven wrong? How many times over the years has it been crushed? Yet still it lives on.

It occurs to me that I'm a little like that.

Torture, she told me. That's why I'm like this. How many people would recover from something like that? But I'm getting better every day. More aware, more focused.

I have something to add to my list, which she has taped up on the wall.

7:05 PM

-I am very, very stubborn

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><p><strong>0511/09**

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><p>1:20 PM<p>

Dionysus has just left. He says that I would have gotten better anyways, but he has sped up the process. She's disappointed. She thought that he would be able to make me go away instantly and replace me with her daughter.

I must stop thinking of us as two separate people. I feel more like her than I ever have before, now. I can remember certain random images and names. Thalia, Luke, a man with blond hair reaching his arms out towards me…

I'm angry. I think I've been angry for a long time. I don't want them to come tomorrow.

The fucking clock is driving me insane. Tick, tock, tick, tock, on and on and on. It never stops. I never stop. I should be dead.

5:00 PM

I remember being naked and screaming, begging for it to stop, and never-ending agony that lit every part of me on fire. It's no wonder that I'm damaged, a charred broken mess. Embers still smoldering somewhere.

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><p><strong>0611/09**

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><p>1:00 PM<p>

I spoke to them. Just one word. Hello. Their answer is more questions.

_Did you hear that? Did she say that?_

Not directed at me, but at each other and her (should I say my mother, now that I remember her a little?). I don't think it requires an answer.

They're disappointed that I've gone back to writing, I think. They thought it was a breakthrough. Maybe it was. The bigger breakthrough for me is that I remember their names, all of them. Grover, Percy, Thalia, Malcolm and Nico: these are my visitors.

If I think very hard, I am able to remember them. Not as they are now, but as they were before. Thalia I see alongside another boy, blond with blue eyes. I can put a name to him. _Luke._

I think I would like to speak to Thalia, but not with these others here. This feels like a private thing, this boy and her and me: this feels like something we share that no one else can understand. No, not something we share. Something her and Annabeth share.

Annabeth is coming back, though. I can feel her surfacing, pushing me aside. I hear snippets of music that she likes, find myself criticizing the clothes mother provides me with, judging the food and wanting to embrace the people.

This must be dying, this slow fade from existence.

9:00 PM

I'm scared to remember. To really remember. I'm afraid I won't be able to forget.

I don't have a choice though.

I talked to Thalia. We chatted about Luke: nothing specific, just his likes and dislikes and personality. I remembered that he was dead. I wish I hadn't.

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><p><strong>0711/09**

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><p>4:25 PM<p>

Tick, tock, tick, tock, the hand on the clock goes round and round. I was allowed outside today, under the sun. They were waiting for me there. Not the usual group, no. Four people this time, looking at me with confusion and sorrow and a little fear.

Two small boys, whose names jumped immediately into my head. Matthew and Bobby. They looked at me as if I was a stranger, but I recognized them.

An Asian woman, tears in her eyes. She looked like she wanted to embrace me, but was holding back for fear that I would shatter or disappear.

Finally, the blond man I had been picturing ever since Dionysus' visit. He swept me up into his arms, and he was crying openly.

This is what I said to him:

I missed you, dad.

This was his question:

_Are you okay, kiddo?_

I answered him, out loud. I told him the truth. I said that no, I wasn't okay, but I would be. And I looked around me, at my family and the sun shining in the sky, and I started to cry.

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><p><em>AN: I'm not entirely satisfied with this. It's a quick oneshot written for the Trapped challenge on Veritaville, which was "Write a five-day diary entry of someone locked in anywhere, like a prison or a room or anything, as long as that person is locked up". It's supposed to be a little... odd. And considering the lack of beta, it's probably gramatically questionable. Please review? *is not above being a whore*_


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